In eras before society became integrated, some of these non-conformists prevailed over such strength as could be mustered against them, and by hearty and forthright robberies and murders came to be leaders and rulers of men--earls, barons, kings. The aristocracy of modern Europe is descended from such stout rebels. They became reconciled with, and organized, society, and aided it in war against the weaker of their own sort; and it was they who devised prisons for such captives as it might be inexpedient to kill outright. All this did not alter the truth that all men are alike evil, and that such as are not also criminals, forbear--at the outset at least--from motives of enlightened selfishness. But in course of time, even enforced good behavior breeds good intent, and "good" people. For God rules us through our very sins, and will lead us, (with our passive cooperation) to religion and regeneration in the end. But the segregation of a criminal class is manifestly human, not Divine; economic, not moral; illusory, not real. Consequently, pains and penalties inflicted by men upon other men, by society upon individuals, by the community upon "criminals," have no warrant of Divine authority, but only of superior numbers or physical strength. The only proper punishment for crime is the criminal's conscience, and if he have none available, he is liable to the natural contingency that violence breeds violence, and may get him in the long run--though it often happens that, measured by mortal standards, the run is not long enough for us to see the finish. We may console ourselves with the reflection that a finish, somewhere, there will be. Meanwhile, it is for persons of intelligence and good will to consider whether, aside from physical penalties or jailing, we possess means for inducing criminals to abstain from crime. Let us leave abstract arguments and come to facts. My license to speak in the premises is due to my being an ex-convict, sentenced to Atlanta Penitentiary for a year and a day, but recently released on "good time." I shall first give you a notion of what jail is, and of what is done and suffered there; then consider what has hitherto been done to alleviate prison conditions and abuses; and end with inquiring whether these measures, actively prosecuted, will prove adequate to the need, or whether something else and more is demanded. If so--_what_? Purgatory is usually understood to be--as its etymology indicates--a place where persons encumbered with evil accretions may have them purged out of them, or stripped off from them, and so be fitted for the purity and innocence of Heaven. It is therefore a beneficent institution. Hell, on the other hand, was the inheritance of those whose evil is ingrowing and cannot be removed--a place where they may live out their diabolical or satanic natures and be punished and tortured by those of like nature with themselves.